I took a quick drive past Swan Lake at Hawkeye WMA this morning. Waterfowl numbers were down - mostly gadwall, with a few blue-winged teal, wigeon, wood duck, Canada goose, hooded merganser, and bufflehead. A handful of pied-billed grebe and several coot were on the lake as well.
The highlight was a hovering bald eagle. I've seen raptors other than kestrel hovering, but don't remember seeing eagles trying it. The effort was about as graceful as a red-tailed hawk's - in other words, not very graceful at all - but the eagle pulled it off, hovering over the lake with its legs down, hoping to grab a fish that evidently never came close enough. It did a good job of clearing the lake of ducks, though. Christopher A. Brochu Associate Professor Department of Geoscience University of Iowa Iowa City, IA 52242 USA phone 319-353-1808 fax 319-335-1821 email [email protected] --- Please contribute your sightings to our list; it is only as good as members make it! --- Birding channel recommendation for FRS/GMRS radio use: Primary selection; channel 5/0 , alternate selection; channel 6/0 --- This mailing list is sponsored by the Iowa Ornithologists' Union. Membership available on-line at http://www.iowabirds.org/iou/membership.asp. ----- You are currently subscribed to ia-bird as: [email protected]
